My friend, I'm so glad you're here! Today I've spun up some brand new instance from DigitalOcean and UpCloud to run some benchmarks on. All instances were spun up with Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 and were created in or around the New York / New Jersey area. Without further ado, here's the results.
Overview
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores)
UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Last Benchmarked
Tue, 12 May 2026 07:00:52 GMT
Wed, 13 May 2026 07:00:52 GMT
Linux Distro
Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64
Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64
Kernel Version
6.8.0-71-generic
6.8.0-111-generic
MySQL Version
8.0.45-0ubuntu0.24.04.1
8.0.45-0ubuntu0.24.04.1
Redis Version
7.0.15
7.0.15
Location
New York, NY
New York, NY
Monthly Price
$24.00
€13.00
RAM (GB)
2
2
CPU Cores
2
1
Storage (TB)
90
50
Storage Type
NVMe
SSD
Transfer (TB)
3
2
CPU
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores)
UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Vendor
GenuineIntel
AuthenticAMD
Model Name
DO-Premium-Intel
AMD EPYC 9575F 64-Core Processor
Clock Speed (MHz)
2,494.14
3,295.48
CPU Cache Size (KB)
4,096.00
512.00
BogoMips
4,988.27
6,590.95
Events per Second
1,059.00
5,025.21
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.89
0.18
Average Latency (ms)
0.94
0.2
Maximum Latency (ms)
1.34
5.35
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
1.06
0.22
Memory
Memory Read
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores)
UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Operations per second
4,660,363.26
5,932,400.60
Mebibytes per second
4,551.14
5,793.36
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
0.1
2.22
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
Memory Write
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores)
UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Operations per second
4,914,287.53
6,706,599.41
Mebibytes per second
4,799.11
6,549.41
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
0.67
1.56
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
File I/O
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores)
UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Reads per Second
3,485.18
3,214.64
Writes per Second
2,323.39
2,143.03
Fsyncs per Second
7,444.43
6,864.71
Read Mebibytes per Second
54.46
50.23
Written Mebibytes per Second
36.30
33.48
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0.07
0.08
Maximum Latency (ms)
8.73
20.14
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.22
0.31
Mutex
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores)
UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Minimum Latency (ms)
779.73
1,349.13
Average Latency (ms)
847.67
1,353.60
Maximum Latency (ms)
901.36
1,361.99
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
893.56
1,352.03
MySQL
MySQL Read-only
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores)
UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Transactions per second
7,533.00
19,090.00
Queries per second
75,330.00
190,900.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
1.16
0.31
Average Latency (ms)
1.33
0.52
Maximum Latency (ms)
3.6
5.34
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
1.64
0.64
MySQL Write-only
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores)
UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Transactions per second
6,869.00
3,974.00
Queries per second
68,690.00
39,740.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.85
0.87
Average Latency (ms)
1.45
2.51
Maximum Latency (ms)
11.9
38.67
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
2.07
5
MySQL Read/Write
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores)
UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Transactions per second
2,892.00
2,830.00
Queries per second
28,920.00
28,300.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
2.12
1.29
Average Latency (ms)
3.45
3.53
Maximum Latency (ms)
17.19
56.72
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
5
6.32
MySQL INSERT
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores)
UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Transactions per second
11,066.00
4,647.00
Queries per second
110,660.00
46,470.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.48
0.61
Average Latency (ms)
0.9
2.15
Maximum Latency (ms)
22.36
28.58
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
1.37
4.41
MySQL Bulk INSERT
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores)
UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Transactions per second
1,346,717.00
2,249,592.00
Queries per second
13,467,170.00
22,495,920.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0.01
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
381.09
207.34
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
MySQL SELECT
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores)
UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Transactions per second
194,784.00
645,161.00
Queries per second
1,947,840.00
6,451,610.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.04
0.01
Average Latency (ms)
0.05
0.02
Maximum Latency (ms)
1.7
2.26
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.07
0.02
MySQL SELECT (Random Points)
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores)
UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Transactions per second
6,550.00
8,546.00
Queries per second
65,500.00
85,460.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.64
0.13
Average Latency (ms)
1.52
1.17
Maximum Latency (ms)
5.13
172.57
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
2.03
1.58
MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores)
UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Transactions per second
7,029.00
11,562.00
Queries per second
70,290.00
115,620.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.45
0.22
Average Latency (ms)
1.42
0.86
Maximum Latency (ms)
4.44
4.07
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
2.07
1.27
MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores)
UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Transactions per second
10,466.00
4,711.00
Queries per second
104,660.00
47,110.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.48
0.73
Average Latency (ms)
0.95
2.12
Maximum Latency (ms)
9.14
30.41
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
1.47
3.96
MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores)
UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Transactions per second
11,675.00
5,393.00
Queries per second
116,750.00
53,930.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.47
0.48
Average Latency (ms)
0.86
1.85
Maximum Latency (ms)
12.01
39
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
1.27
3.43
MySQL DELETE
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores)
UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Transactions per second
124,444.00
101,195.00
Queries per second
1,244,440.00
1,011,950.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.04
0.01
Average Latency (ms)
0.08
0.1
Maximum Latency (ms)
13.22
39.3
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.1
0.17
Redis
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores)
UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
PING_INLINE per Second
73,691.97
130,208.34
PING_MBULK per Second
85,616.44
130,208.34
SET per Second
95,057.03
130,890.05
GET per Second
100,704.94
129,198.97
INCR per Second
96,246.39
128,534.70
LPUSH per Second
91,911.76
128,040.97
RPUSH per Second
87,412.59
126,582.27
LPOP per Second
101,522.84
124,688.28
RPOP per Second
102,354.15
127,226.46
SADD per Second
85,178.88
129,198.97
HSET per Second
93,023.25
133,511.34
SPOP per Second
99,900.09
139,275.77
ZADD per Second
101,729.40
130,039.02
ZPOPMIN per Second
101,729.40
129,701.68
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second
53,821.31
55,524.71
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second
30,525.03
28,785.26
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second
19,857.03
18,942.98
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second
14,940.98
17,038.68
MSET (10 keys) per Second
84,245.99
108,225.10
Redis Average Latency (ms)
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores)
UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
PING_INLINE
0.36
0.25
PING_MBULK
0.33
0.25
SET
0.27
0.26
GET
0.26
0.26
INCR
0.33
0.26
LPUSH
0.28
0.26
RPUSH
0.30
0.27
LPOP
0.26
0.27
RPOP
0.26
0.27
SADD
0.31
0.26
HSET
0.29
0.26
SPOP
0.26
0.24
ZADD
0.26
0.26
ZPOPMIN
0.27
0.26
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)
0.54
0.66
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)
1.04
1.27
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)
1.38
1.95
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)
1.93
2.16
MSET (10 keys)
0.40
0.34
Conclusion
From the friendly robots:
Both the DigitalOcean Premium Intel instance and the UpCloud Balanced instance deliver impressive performance, but they cater to different use cases best. The DigitalOcean instance excels in CPU-intensive tasks with strong Redis benchmarks and better CPU thread fairness, making it ideal for applications requiring high CPU throughput and low latency, like microservices and database operations. The UpCloud instance shines in memory and I/O operations, providing superior memory bandwidth and throughput, which is ideal for workloads that benefit from high random read/write speeds, like high-traffic web servers and database-intensive applications. The UpCloud's CPU, although having a single core, shows robust performance in various benchmarks, making it suitable for general-purpose computing and moderately CPU-demanding applications.
From the friendly human:
If you found this VPS Showdown helpful in your search for a hosting provider, please consider supporting my efforts by signing up using my referral links for DigitalOcean and UpCloud.